


Hath Been No Fault in Me

by TheDarknessOfMereBeing



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen Live, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Rhaegar Won, Anti-Lyanna, BAMF Elia Martell, Dissolution Trial, Elia Martell Lives, Elia is inspired by KOA, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I guess Lyanna is kinda AB then, Listen if you like them this will probably not be your thing, Lyanna Stark Lives, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rhaegar Targaryen Lives, Rhaegar Targaryen knows nothing, anti-Rhaegar, but also kinda, not really - Freeform, rhaegar is an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarknessOfMereBeing/pseuds/TheDarknessOfMereBeing
Summary: Elia was so sure that her mother taught her all there is to know, but no one could have seen this coming; her lessons still come in handy anyway.orRhaegar intends to set Elia aside, it doesn't go quite as planned.
Relationships: Baelor Hightower/Elia Martell, Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Jaime Lannister & Elia Martell, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 20
Kudos: 88





	Hath Been No Fault in Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Girl with Blood Moon Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022861) by [Becky_Blue_Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becky_Blue_Eyes/pseuds/Becky_Blue_Eyes). 



> So ever since I read this story, I had this idea in my head about what the trial might have looked like. The dissolution trial reminds me of the Blackfriars trial, and since Elia is often compared to KOA, well, I needed her to have her moment. The title is a nod to the speech KOA gives during the trial, it's kinda epic. 
> 
> This is still more or less within the same universe (well that he wins and wants to set her aside), it is more like an in-depthish look at the year after Rhaegar comes back. I haven't fully decided yet what the complete end of this will look like, but I do have something in mind. I may or may not end up editing this, so we shall see.
> 
> Also if you haven't read it, I do recommend.

Sometimes she wishes she had the foresight to have predicted that things would end up this way, it would have been much less complicated.

Maybe it was only ever going to end this way...her life has been countless moments of traveling on the path not taken. There are times where she has had to struggle to make things something they are not, and there are times when she somehow manages to make everything go in her favor. This time she wonders if the gods have decided to give back to her all the things that she would have never gotten otherwise.

\----

Ever since Elia was old enough to remember, she knew that she would marry into a great house, since her mother wanted only the best for her only daughter. So when she turned six and ten, her mother had planned out a trip to meet all these prospective young men she could potentially marry.

Surprisingly, she finds herself half in love with one of them, until he manages to fart in their presence. Afterward, she can’t help but laugh every time she sees him, she isn’t so sure she can marry him now. It’s such a shame, she can’t help but wonder if things would have been different if Oberyn hadn’t made that comment in the first place.

The tour ends with no betrothal and a baby offered instead of the prized heir. Needless to say, it was not the productive trip her mother hoped it would be.

In the end she doesn’t marry any of them, at least not for her first marriage. She wonders what would have happened if she married the man she ended up falling in love with, the one she already was half in love with to begin with. She imagines she would have saved herself the trouble that is Rhaegar and Lyanna.

\----

Somehow her mother gets her revenge in the form of a betrothal and then subsequent marriage for Elia to the crown prince. He is handsome and kind, but she already knows that the most she can hope for is a partnership, perhaps even a true friendship. She accepted long ago that love was not something she would get in her marriage, but love is not the most important thing that binds a marriage nor what makes it work. It is duty that lays the foundation and builds upon it, it is what makes a marriage last.

For some time, it seems that they do make things work, from how they run the castle to how they deal with his father, it seems that things are good even. Her goodfather, the king, is many things, but so is her husband, and she is thankful he is not his father (if only she knew that he was more like his father than his mother). She often wonders why he doesn’t do more about his father, he could save them all a world of trouble if he did. After all, he does want to be king and everyone knows how unstable his father has been for the last few years. It isn’t until much later on she realizes how ill suited her husband is in doing anything with any risk (or anything really unless he fully believes it will go his way), and she knows that he is so much weaker than anyone thinks.

Maybe she should have seen it coming, the way things all end up, but she wouldn’t know that until later. If only she had known.

\----

The seams of her marriage begin to crumble much earlier than anyone would have guessed. There is something her husband absent mindedly talks about, but that slowly worsens after their daughter is born. He starts reading all these texts, tombs, and scrolls, but never fully explains things to her; he rambles on and on, never saying what it all means. After a trying birth, she takes a long time to recover, not that it matters, her husband is confident about something when he takes her the night of the comet. He doesn’t touch her for several weeks afterward, not until she finds herself throwing up and tired all the time. He has the maester confirm what he already knows, she is pregnant, and he is sure it will be a son. She smiles and indulges him, she hopes it is an heir just to get her goodfather off her back, what does he know anyway?

Harrenhal is when she fully understands that their marriage is a ticking time bomb, and then finally, enters the woman who is going to denote it all (She knew that there would be women who would try to get in her marriage, she just never imagined that someone would be so successful while Rhaegar not seeing it at all. He is such a fool).

She is humiliated and embarrassed, but this is her marriage and husband, what can she do but to accept it and move on. She will do what she must to make this work, she cannot afford to fail. So she doesn’t forgive him nor does she forget it, but she lets herself pretend things are fine, it feels better than the alternative (in truth, it doesn’t make a real difference).

\----

He acts strangely after the tourney, he is more secretive and closed off, she knows something is going on, but she has too much on her plate to focus on him as well (Maybe if she did she would not have been so blindsided by it all). He barely comes out of his solar, he spends more time away and less with her and their daughter. Even as her time draws near and she can barely get out of bed, he feels so far away and distant, she wonders where her husband is, and is there anything she can do to make him come back. She hopes the birth of their child will change things.

He is happy enough after the birth of their son, happy to have his ‘prince who was promised’, but the distance between them only seems to widen. He tells her that the dragon must have three heads, but the maester isn’t sure she will survive another birth, and recommends not trying for another. He seems only partly put off by it, but something in his head clicks and he tells her to rest, the gods will give them all they need. The day he leaves without warning, she hopes things will not get worse than they already are (so hopeful in the face of the inevitable and terrible truth, if only she knew), and she tries in vain to make it all work. It won’t, but she couldn’t have known that.

By the time her goodfather knows her husband ran away, she becomes a hostage in her own home. She bides her time, the only way to ensure the survival of her children and their inheritance is if her husband is successful, which he is, but it does not stop the lions from attacking. Thankfully they don’t succeed in what they set out to do, not that she would have ever allowed that to happen anyway; her mother made sure she was capable of taking care of herself and those she loved.

She understands how vulnerable her position is, and she strikes a deal that she wouldn’t have otherwise; it seems she has made the right friends after all. When she learns of her husband’s victory, she knows her children will be safe, but not her marriage, her marriage has been doomed from the start. He announces his intention to set her aside, and she has to hold herself from laughing in his face. He thinks he can have his cake and eat it too, well he has another thing coming. It seems he has forgotten who he married, maybe it is time he got a reminder.

\----

She remembers what it was like to marry the then crown prince and now the current king; she can still taste the ridiculous amount of different dishes, smell the lilacs in the air, and hear the laughter as they walked together as husband and wife. She wonders if she had known all she knows now, perhaps things would have been better.

She had so much hope for their future, there was so much they could have accomplish, they could have been the next Daeron and Myriah, but she should have known better than to trust a Targaryen, but that lesson would not come until later.

They were friends, they cared for one another, they were going to build a life together. It was supposed to be perfect or as close to perfection as one can get. He could have been the best husband, and she did everything she could to be the best wife...None of that mattered in the long run, it would never work out.

For a short time, she thought that the fault laid in her, if only because what else could it be? She wondered what it was that she lacked that someone else, this girl, had. It took her a long time to realize that she had been asking the wrong question. There was never a fault in her, she wasn’t the problem, it was him, this man she married who was to blame, and she will not let herself take the fall for his own ruin.

\----

This has to be better, she knows that there is too much at stake for anything to go wrong, and she knows that it must all work itself out. She cannot afford to lose, not because of her pride or ego, but because the alternative would be her ruin. She has spent so much time wondering where things will end for them, but this is something she could never have predicted.

Like everything else she does, she does this for her children. She will make sure that their father never gets to hurt them or take away what is rightfully theirs. She will not back down, she will not let the opinions of others get to her; all that matters is that she ensures her children and people get their due. If she gets something out of it, well, who is she to ignore the wills of the gods. They flipped that coin when her husband was born, and it seems that it has already been decided where that will all end up. The signs were all there, now it is time to play the game, who wins and who loses, history will prove it. She has to win and she will, she will never let her fool of a husband get away with this...he won't see any of this coming.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of hate this (admittedly, I'm never really satisfied with my work in general), but also I think that the wrong person is writing this, but we shall see. I also have had some writer's block recently, so this isn't how I wanted it to come out, but then again, I wasn't really sure what I wanted it to look like. Hopefully this all goes well, I'm not actually sure how often I will be writing, but I do have an outline more or less, so I have an idea of where things will go, although that is subject to change and I have had a really hard time writing consistently, so there is also that. I do hope you guys like it.
> 
> Once again I spent over a month deciding if I was going to post it, but I guess posting it won out in the end so here we are.


End file.
